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Bëor's eyes were closed against the bright afternoon sun that was shining down on them, doing nothing but enjoy the summer heat. Nargothrond was beautiful and far from dark thanks to countless torchess and lightstones, but he still preferred the open sky and the sunlight, and there were no better days than those he got to spend lying by the river, listening to Finrod's harp and his songs, as enchanting after two years by his side as they had been that very first night when they had met. He didn't quite know what Finrod was singing about – Bëor was still learning the elves' language, and while he spoke it reasonably well, songs were always harder to understand – but it didn't really matter. Finrod's voice was as beautiful as a god's, and Bëor would glady listen to him all day even if he didn't understand a single word. He tried not to sigh in disappointment when the song ended and Finrod did not start another, told himself to be patient. Sometimes Finrod got distracted by animals he saw, or simply by the sky or the river. Bëor could hear his lord's bare feet step over the grass towards him, and he smiled a little, his eyes still closed. He was relaxed – if there was any danger, surely Finrod would tell him.
His smile widened when he felt something brush against his shoulder as Finrod sat down next to him. Long fingers caressed Bëor's cheek, touching his beard with every bit as much fascination as the very first time Finrod had lifted his hand to Bëor's face, those beautiful blue eyes filled with wonder. Bëor could imagine that look easily without even opening his own eyes.
“What are you doing, my prince?” he asked gently, even as he leant a little into the warm touch. Finrod laughed, a sound as melodious and sweet as his voice, as soft as Finrod's golden hair when Bëor ran his fingers through it. As if Finrod had read his mind – Bëor was sure that he actually did, sometimes – his prince shifted a little to let his hair fall down over his shoulder, until the silky strands brushed Bëor's cheek and neck.
“You know I can't get enough of your beard,” Finrod said. He had to be bending forward, for Bëor could feel the elf's warm breath on his face. Bëor chuckled. Finrod's almost obsessed fascination with his body hair would never cease to amaze him. Bëor had never considered himself particularly good-looking – sure, he wasn't ugly, he was tall and strong, he had full hair and good teeth, but other than that? Women were pretty, and young boys, but no grown man would ever waste a thought on his looks. Finrod, however, seemed to have decided for some strange reason that Bëor was more beautiful than any elf.
“You're very odd sometimes,” Bëor replied and finally opened his eyes, and as always Finrod's sight took his breath away. His long hair gleamed like the purest gold in the sunlight, his eyes seemed to shine as if they were filled with light of their own, his skin was more flawless than even a child's. It was beyond Bëor why a creature like Finrod would even look at him, let alone touch him.
“I'm not odd,” Finrod argued, more amused than offended. “I simply appreciate beauty wherever I find it.”
He lay down in the grass next to Bëor, his hair partly falling over Bëor's chest, a stark contrast to the dark chest hair that peeked out from his half-open shirt. It was too warm to be properly dressed, and Finrod seemed to have an aversion to Bëor closing his shirts anyway. The elf rested his head against Bëor's shoulder and breathed a kiss onto Bëor's bearded chin.
“All right, I was wrong then,” Bëor laughed. “You're not odd, you're mad. Or maybe just blind.”
“That is a very disrespectful thing to say to your prince.” Finrod failed to sound the least bit offended, if only because his words were muffled against Bëor's cheek, and his fingers still petted Bëor's beard like it was the softest silk in the world.
“I would never disrespect my wise, beautiful prince.” Bëor smiled, and added more seriously, “You do know I'm not complaining. I'm the luckiest man in the world.”
Finrod gave him a warm smile and snuggled up to him, his body in distractingly thin silks curled up against Bëor's side. It was easy to forget how much smaller than him Finrod was when he saw him at court, his beauty and charisma – not to mention the finery and jewels he wore there – distracting from the fact that he was not particularly tall, but when they lay together like this Finrod's body almost seemed frail next to his, deceptively slender and vulnerable. Bëor knew that most elves were stronger than they looked, but it still made him feel oddly protective. He wrapped his arm around Finrod's shoulders to keep him close, allowed himself to wrap a few of those golden strands around his fingers.
Finrod kissed his chin, then the corner of his mouth, before he rubbed his cheek against Bëor's as he so often did. If he was a cat, Bëor was sure he would be purring now.
“You're beautiful,” Finrod said with all the conviction and certainty of someone who had lived for over a thousand years – and Bëor would never be able to wrap his mind around a lifespan that long – and knew what he was talking about. “There's such strength in you, a wild strength that none of my people have, and yet your eyes are full of kindness and nobility. I could spend eternity looking into them.”
Bëor laughed a little to mask his embarrassment. His people did not say such things to each other. They loved, of course they did, but they saw love as a partnership between two people who got along very well and who were stronger together than alone, not as the all-encompassing thing it was for the elves, something that changed them to the core and became part of them, to the point where even imagining a life without their love was painful, and the idea of ever loving someone else was unthinkable. It was strange and confusing, sometimes even terrifying, but it seemed fitting. Bëor did not love Finrod as he had loved his wife. Finrod was not his partner, he was the centre of his life, the sun and the moon and the starlight, his very reason to live. Bëor was only human, but he was sure that he loved Finrod as much as any elf could have done.
“I do not deserve you, my fair prince,” Bëor said finally, his hand resting against Finrod's neck. He did not say it to deter Finrod from loving him, never that, but because he would always feel such wonder and amazement that his prince saw him as anything more than a trusted subject.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Finrod replied, and Bëor agreed, it did not matter. If he could make his prince smile, if he could bring such joy and happiness into his eyes, if he was what Finrod wanted, who was Bëor to argue with him? Happiness, after all, could be found in the oddest places, and he was certainly not going to complain that Finrod had found his in Bëor's arms.
Finrod kissed him, and his lips tasted of the sweet summer wine they had taken with them. It was not the wine, though, that made Bëor feel drunk every time his prince's mouth met his, gentle and loving and yet so needy, as if Finrod truly could not get enough of touching him. Perfect pale hands slid under his half-opened shirt to touch his chest – his chest-hair, really – and with all the grace of a wild cat Finrod sat up to straddle him, his lips only leaving Bëor's for a split second. Finrod's hair spilt down on both sides of Bëor's face, and as the sun shone through thick blond hair, all Bëor could see was Finrod's face bathed in golden light. He understood what Finrod had meant.
If Bëor had been granted eternal life, he would have wanted to spend it looking at his prince.